It Was Meant To Be Easy
by crazybookgirl101
Summary: Seventeen means mate bonds for wolves, and the last thing Remus needs is for the romance demolition bomb that was James Potter to go fucking about with his already screwed love life. Remus figured he had a year to find and locate his other half, and a lifetime to fall in love with them. Unfortunately, he never factored his three friends or Lily Evan into the equation.


Disclaimer: all rights belong to J.K. Rowling. Not me. I own nothing. We clear? I own none of this.

"You're quiet, Moons," Sirius muttered, nudging the taller boy in the ribs gently. The other two went quiet, neither having been brave enough to point out their friend's silence throughout the train journey to Hogwarts.

Peter and James exchanged looks, and Remus shuffled and sighed at the attention that was on him. "Everything okay, Moonie?" Peter followed the question up, as James watched on, his gaze running over Remus to look for any fresh scars that would not have been courtesy of the full moon from two weeks ago.

Remus closed his eyes and let his head fall onto Sirius's shoulder, whose response was to wrap an arm around the blonde to ensure maximum comfort. Sirius had sat upon the train bench next to Remus, and James and Peter on the opposing ones. The latter had been in their respective corners with junk food and random entertainment in the form of magazines and playing cards in the space between them, the former due to Sirius's boundary problems had been wedged together with no space between them.

As the situation had been when Sirius had found Remus on the platform, and instead of walk calmly over and hug him had run at him and jumped to send them both sprawling over the concrete as Remus let out an undignified shriek that in Marauder tradition was the herald that signified the Hogwarts year had begun.  
James had sauntered up with an overly innocent smile while enquiring after Remus's summer, not acknowledging the Sirius that sat upon his chest or the theatrical fake tears that said boy cried dramatically into Remus's shirt while kissing every square inch of his face.  
Remus had just given a wry smile, twisted and flipped him and Sirius so that the other boy was underneath him. Pecked his nose and winked before standing up to brush off his clothes as the disowned son of Black sat on the concrete with a wide, bright smile. Remus knew Padfoot's tail would be wagging a mile a minute if Sirius was in his animagus form.

They had bundled on with laughs, and eager hugs and high fives, Sirius keeping himself wedged up against Remus while constantly spouting dramatic reunion nonsense that had Remus clutching the ribs that Sirius's elbow had just nudged.  
Remus met all of their eyes, he knew he had to tell them, but God, had he been hoping to put it off first.

"Before school started, McGonagall came round to my house to visit," he started carefully. He paused and pushed his curly blonde hair out of his eyes from where it flopped forwards and tried not to feel oppressed by the way his four friends crowded around him, leaning forwards and resting their arms on their knees as they waited. "She wanted to talk about me turning seventeen," he explained.

"Okay?" James asked, his voice probing gently. 

"Werewolves and Wizard are considered adults at the same age, did you know that?" he asked. The attempt at procrastinating failed on all of them, and only drew blank stares as they waited for him to continue. "I hadn't even thought about the possibility of what- I mean, I thought about it but cause I'm… it could be anyone." He stumbled and tripped as he tried to explain, all while being perfectly aware that none of what he had just said made a lick of sense to his three best friends, all of which were exchanging concerned and questioning looks with each other in response to Remus's question.

Sirius was the first to speak, "who could be anyone?" for a moment Remus did not answer, and instead, he just slumped further into Sirius as he closed his eyes and willed himself away from the conversation.

"What hadn't you thought about?" James questioned curiously, hoping that by snagging onto the beginning of the sentence they might get an answer.

In the end, though, it was Peter that figured out how to get a response, "I know we are geniuses mate, but even we have our limits." The small chubby boy sighed, and from the small cocoon Sirius had wrapped their resident werewolf into the sound of Remus laughing could be heard.

"Last time I give you guy's credit," Remus shot back. With that the tension in the carriage evaporated as they all laughed at the quick joke, Sirius removed himself from Remus, and returned to sitting like a normal human, James leant back and started to mess his hair up again, and Peter popped some liquorice allsorts into his mouth.

It was a few minutes later when Cara Davies slinked past the compartment and paused to shoot Remus a lascivious wink that caused Remus to shudder and groan in horror.

"Dear God, don't let it be her."

The other three paused, not sure if they should return to their previous questioning or not.

Remus realised at the last moment that he was going to have to explain and explain a damn sight better than what he had been at that, he paused, pushed the stubborn curls from his eyes, blew out a deep breath, and started to speak.

"Okay, you know wolves mate for life and stuff?" he asked.

Three nods responded to him.

"Well, so do werewolves," he took an intentional pause, expecting the following freak out from his three best friends.

Sirius exploding with, "You have a mate?"

James's disbelieving, "Wait, does that include you?"

And a small horrified, "Do you get a choice?" from Peters corner.

Remus tried not to laugh at his friends and twisted to face Peter first, "nope. Honestly, Wormtail, it's entirely beyond my control." He explained calmly, although the way Peter's eyes grew and his skin mottled the idea of no control struck Peter harder than it had Remus, who had sat lamenting and bitching about the injustice for a good two weeks before starting to acknowledge that complaining wouldn't help a damn.

Then he twisted to Sirius, "No. Not yet, it is supposed to happen within the year, though, which means it's someone at Hogwarts."

He turned to James, before being unceremoniously yanked back to continue dealing with his punk rock friends dramatics.

"Uhh, no. We have met every girl at Hogwarts, you are telling me one of them is your…" he stammered, "Soul mate?" admittedly the terminology and implications still kinda needled Remus too, but all Remus could do against his friend's anger was nod bleakly as he waited for Sirius to blow up.

"Although," Remus said, "that's unlikely- the mate bond is technically magic, which means from the accounts I've heard the person will be my perfect other half, which means, unlikely to be a girl."

At this, his friends all chuckled sheepishly, each remembering that Remus had come out in the fifth year and had dated guys exclusively since. Remus didn't begrudge them the assumption, hell, his reaction had been entirely the same, he had naturally assumed that nature would stick him with a female.

Sirius didn't stop, though, "wait, does that mean another werewolf will be showing up?" the criminally attractive male didn't bother to keep the anxiety off his face, or the outward jealousy from his voice as they all realised that a second wolf would effectively shut down their entire animagi schemes.

"It's unlikely to be another wolf; it would be way too much danger." Remus explained, "That's the part of this I'm freaking out about, there's the very nearly guaranteed- well, totally guaranteed, it will be another wizard."

He waited for people to start yelling and screaming.

What he didn't expect was James to jump up with excitement, twisting his hair and grinning the way he normally only did when Lily did something passably nice towards him. Starting his grand declarations of "well then, my dearest Moonikens, it is our job to scout all the available men of Hogwarts," he paused when Peter coughed, and Sirius glared at him shooting a very clear look at the group of thirteen-year-olds currently passing by the carriage. James flushed, and looked sheepish for a moment, "within the appropriate age limit," James tacked on.

The messy haired delinquent squinted at Sirius who nodded for him to continue, "Excluding current company, ex-boyfriends, and any and all Slytherins."

Remus and Peter exchanged a look, sharing a very clear 'this man is absolutely fucking deranged' look, before individually turning to look at Sirius who looked just as dumbstruck as they did.

Sirius met his curly haired friend's eyes, and within two seconds the dark haired one turned to James and sighed a very clear, incontestable, "No."

"You don't get it," Remus said. He stood up to face James, needing their leader to understand. "This is not a choice. We can't just scout and find a guy I think is cute on the chance that it might be him." he saw James go to argue, and waved a hand to cut him off before anything stupid left the Potter boy's mouth. " I turn seventeen in two weeks, and the last thing I need is to get my hopes up only to be shattered when it is not who I want," Remus told them. His voice rose, as he twisted his hands and bounced on his feet a little.

It was the careful hand Sirius placed on Remus's back that made the younger but taller boy slump guiltily back into his seat. Remus was the most cool-headed out of the four and had only ever raised his voice a few times in his entire life. The last thing Remus John Lupin needed was for the romance bomb that was James Potter to go fucking about with his already screwed love life.

Thankfully they were all spared saying anything when the ginger bombshell known as Lily Evans waltzed in, took one look at Remus, and immediately fell over him whispering and hugging him as though she could put him bac together.

"Uhh, I'll ask- what on earth?" Peter asked when both James, himself, and Sirius had recovered from the sudden intrusion.

Lily turned to them and gave them the most scathing look possible. Before standing up, placing her hands on her hips and donning an expression that all four collectively referred to as 'the ball crusher.'

"Unlike you Neandertals, I did research over the holidays instead of allowing my brain to turn to complete mush,"

"Lily, my flower, your brain could never fall so low as ours; you are a goddess among-"

"Shut it, Potter." She snapped and smirked when James instantly stopped moving his mouth.

She turned back to Remus, and sat down on her knees in front of him, to give him a soft, comforting smile. "I know that this is the year you meet your mate, you're not alone, okay? I'll be here, no matter who it is."

Remus nodded, and quite happily threw himself into her waiting arms. Sirius scowled, aware of how entirely unfair her favouritism was, besides that, he was entirely sure that James would hex him into the next five centuries if he threw himself into Lily that way.

Remus was mumbling muffled thanks into Lily's shoulder, and she was stroking his hair softly. From this angle the setting sun caught the gold and set it on fire, reminding Sirius of several muggle paintings he had seen, the light also touched down on some of the small faded white scars that covered the back of Remus's neck. As well as unfairly illuminating the soft beige and coral skin of Remus's ridiculously smooth cheeks. His eyes had closed, but the curled black lashes had fluttered down, and Sirius briefly considered the task of counting them before Remus opened his eyes and caught him staring.

James raised an eyebrow at him, a small soft smile playing over his lips at the way Lily fretted and fussed over Remus. Sirius may have thought it unfair that there was a distinct double standard despite both him and Moony being gay and uninterested in shagging Lily, but even he knew that there wasn't a single person in this compartment that would refuse Remus a damn single thing, aside from Remus himself.

James caught Sirius's eye and quirked an eyebrow curiously. Sirius didn't need occlumency to interpret the look, and neither did James as they proceeded to have the following silent conversation.

Sirius blushed lightly at the quirk, understanding the 'you still fancy him?'

Which James understood as 'a bit more than that.'

James scowled, and glanced towards their respective interests 'you think?'

Sirius shrugged, 'I want it to be.'

James gave him a warning glare, 'this is going to be a right mess.'

Sirius ducked his head and sighed. 'I know, mate. I fucking know.'

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